[yshavurah] a worthwhile piece sent by a former student

From: Eric Friedland <efriedland@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: andrew g <andrewgoldstein@xxxxxxxxx>,arnold j w <Wolf0047@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, bernard m <bemeh@xxxxxxxxxxx>,ullman <ullmanshome@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,charles m <charles@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,ys havurah <yshavurah@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, paul k <pkulback@xxxxxxxxxxxx>,sheldon seevak <shel@xxxxxxxxxx>,phil r <prothman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,michael remson <Ravremson@xxxxxxx>,rita <ritadushmanrich@xxxxxxxxxxx>, ed gessel <edgess@xxxxxxx>,feist <rr.feiday@xxxxxxxx>, peter w <pwells@xxxxxxxx>,harlan <wechslerh@xxxxxxx>, michael j <m_jaffe@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>,marsha <walnuthillsfideles@xxxxxxxxx>, marshall <mweiss@xxxxxxxx>,michael kent <michael.kent@xxxxxxxxxx>, karp <mkarp@xxxxxxxxxxx>,joan knoll <jcknoll@xxxxxxxxxx>,ivan and sonia <ivangoldfarb@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>,chuck & helen <hcabram820@xxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 29 Dec 2003 13:32:11 -0500

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From: "William Belanich Jr." <WMBELANICHJR@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sat, 06 Dec 2003 11:58:05 -0500
To: Eric Friedland <efriedland@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: sorry!!!!   Here's the article!

Dec. 4, 2003
Israel's two greatest mistakes
By SHIMON PERES 

Israel reached its apex in the Six Day War. But the great military victory
became an even greater political dilemma. In retrospect, we probably made
two huge historical mistakes, whose price we are going to pay for a long
time to come. 

At the memorial service for David Ben-Gurion a few days ago I thought to
myself that with Ben-Gurion at the helm those two mistakes would have been
avoided. What were they?

One is that we did not turn the military victory into a political gain. I am
not referring to our declarations of willingness to make peace with the Arab
countries based on the international borders. Those were lifeless words.
Freight cars of words without a real engine. Had we invested the necessary
energy in making peace with Egypt after Nasser's death, and with Egypt
before the Yom Kippur War, we would probably have avoided that war and might
have achieved a different kind of peace accord than we got at Camp David.

Ben-Gurion, who said that for real peace he would have given back most of
the territories, was not at the helm. His words were heard, but as the words
of a statesman, not as the commitment of a leader. Peace with Egypt would
have led to peace with Jordan. And King Hussein would have been the one to
manage the Palestinian issue (as was proved in the agreement I reached with
King Hussein in London in 1987, an agreement that Yitzhak Shamir thwarted,
and which I know many of his supporters regret to this day).

There might also have been an opportunity to reach full peace with Syria.
And I know from my contacts with Hafez Assad through the US that he was
prepared to take an initiative that would have turned an agreement with
Syria into an agreement with all the Arab countries.

We missed that opportunity. The leaders of those days had goodwill and good
intentions. But they did not have what Ben-Gurion had plenty of: foresight.
The ability to make decisions. The ability not to take the beaten path.

THE SECOND mistake was falling in love, without bounds, without demographic
considerations, with the territories. I could not believe it when I heard
Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert declare at Ben-Gurion's memorial service,
"A Jewish state without the integrity of the land is better than the
integrity of the land without a Jewish state." And this, he says, is on
behalf of the prime minister.

What a tragic missed opportunity. Had the Likud and its leaders accepted
Ben-Gurion's view 25 years ago, the whole country would look, and live,
differently. 

Tremendous sums of money, estimated at hundreds of billions of dollars, that
were invested in the territories, would have been invested in the Negev.
Instead of cultivating a cruel fight between us and our neighbors, we would
have developed the alternative "fight": with the Negev wilderness. The Negev
would be blossoming. Full of lawns, groves, forests, ponds. And its
wonderful dry climate would give life to hundreds of thousands of people who
live in the crowded center, choking from concrete and smoke.

The huge fortune we invested in the territories, which today Sharon and
Olmert understand undermine Israel's existence as a state with a Jewish
majority, would have been invested in the Negev, in Galilee, in education,
in creating jobs, in cultivating relations with our neighbors and in
protecting our country's landscapes. Those who claim Oslo is a crime caused
the biggest sin in Israel's history. Our staying in the territories did not
give us security (because terrorism replaced conventional war) or peace
(because without giving back the territories there will be no peace) nor a
modern Israeli society (that has to exist in an open, global economy).

What a mistake! And how hard it is to correct today. The temporary integrity
of the territories led to a deep rift in the nation, a rift that makes it
that much harder to repair the mistakes of war.

I know that Ben-Gurion would have been moved by the mass immigration from
the former Soviet Union. He predicted it. He hoped for it. But if he were
living among us he would have devoted all of his energy to continue that
immigration and to create the economic and political conditions for it to go
on. 

I am sure that were Ben-Gurion alive today, he would make it Israel's top
priority to become a country that excels at science. He would probably be
interested in the evolving scientific revolution - the nanotechnology
revolution. 

I may be able to testify to that better than any other person. I saw his
tremendous interest in the human mind and the power of the atom. He studied
and investigated and allowed me, against conventional wisdom, to bring that
revolutionary technology to Israel. The breakthroughs of nanotechnology are
the complementary sequence to the secrets of the atom. An atomic bomb is a
clash between two atomic systems that results in the outbreak of a
destructive atomic reaction. The clash inside the bomb is blind. Now a
microscope has been developed that allows us to see the atomic structure and
as a result to organize it, to use it, not to destroy worlds but to build
worlds. Nanotechnology is not a new discovery but a new dimension.
Unfortunately, I do not see among our politicians many people who understand
the significance of science to the future of humanity and the future of
Israel, as Ben-Gurion did.

Curiosity, says Nabokov, is the beginning of non-surrender. I suppose
Ben-Gurion is looking at us from above and saying to himself: "Look what we
have come to. Man is standing with a tool in his hand to rebuild himself."
Science has not grown in strength, man has. In terms of the choices he has
too. And then he adds: "I always believed in the biblical promise that each
person was created in God's image, although he does not become God." Today
he has powers that give him possibilities he never had since being evicted
from the Garden of Eden. "And allow me to say to you: be a chosen people. A
light unto the nations." The alternative to light is dark. And man can both
turn on a light and darken his world.

Therefore choose the right road.

The writer, a former prime minister, is chairman of the Labor Party

[yshavurah] a worthwhile piece sent by a former student

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